


the whole universe wants to be touched

by betty_noire



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Author grew up on a farm, Author loves dogs and cows, Everyone loves their pets a lot, Keith's wolf is a puppy, Lance (Voltron) is a Good Friend, M/M, Oblivious Keith (Voltron), Team as Family, Trans Female Pidge | Katie Holt, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-27 03:28:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15015665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betty_noire/pseuds/betty_noire
Summary: This is the story of how Keith names his dog Lance on accident, tries to lie about it, and falls in love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly I just love dogs and animals a lot, I don't know how this got so long. I have a dog and I love her and she's incredibly naughty and that's who Keith's dog is based on. I did my best with everybody's characterization but if anyone is wildly out of character it's only because I'm a big idiot. Also Pidge being trans doesn't come up in this chapter but she is so Know That. 
> 
> This is unbeta'd so be nice! I haven't posted fic for years!
> 
> Edit: I read through it once and tried to catch some of the typos! Sorry for any I missed though, I'll try to proofread the next chapters more thoroughly before posting them!

Shiro can tell that from the look on his face, Keith knows he’s not buying it. He looks up from where he’s sitting on the floor of the black lion cockpit in amused disbelief, almost entirely hidden behind the wolf-dog in his lap.

“You named your dog Lance?” he asks, just to make sure he's hearing this right.

He’d stopped scratching her behind her ears for a second to stare and see if maybe Keith was fucking with him. The dog who, he guesses, is named Lance, whines disapprovingly at the lack of attention, twisting her body to try to lick his face. Shiro ducks out of the way with a snort and resumes his petting. She settles down again.

Keith rubs his eyes in frustration and tries again. 

“It was supposed to just be a joke— because she’s blue and hyperactive and after I first found her she got her head stuck in a tree. I didn’t mean for it to stick, but then it just…did. I don’t want it to be weird” Keith says, starting to get defensive.

Shiro actually laughs at that and it makes Lance huff excitedly and thump her tail.

“I’m not saying I don’t see it, but it’s definitely gonna be weird” Shiro says carefully.

It is nice, Shiro thinks, that however much Keith has grown up and changed since he’s been away, he hasn’t lost his incredibly low tolerance for teasing. Keith purses his lips and widens his eyes as his face begins to turn red. Here it comes, thinks Shiro.

“Krolia never thought it was weird!” Keith spits defensively, and turns to his mom who was leaning against a nearby wall reading something on her tablet and clearly attempting to tune out the Keith tantrum building up to full steam ten feet to her right. Shiro looks over at her apologetically, but she meets his eyes frankly and seems mostly unbothered. A wrinkle appears between her eyebrows as she regards the pair of them. Finally, Krolia shrugs.

“I wanted to call it Yorak.” she says.

Keith rolls his eyes and waves his arm as if batting that suggestion away, turning his full glare back to Shiro. Shiro just shakes his head at him, using his hand to rub Lance under her chin while she leans back into his shoulder, panting happily.

“Your mom might be on to something here actually” Shiro starts, but Keith interrupts him before he can finish. 

“I’m not calling her Yorak!” he says, sounding scandalized.

“Why not?” Krolia grunts exasperatedly to herself from the sidelines, throwing her arms up in the air. Keith ignores her and Shiro spares a sympathetic glance her way before continuing.

“You don’t have to call her that necessarily, but you might want to come up with a different name for her now that we’re all back together again. Unless you want to deal with Lance finding out you named your dog after him?” Shiro says reasonably.

At the sound of her name Lance starts thumping her tail and lets out a happy little boof.

“As a joke” Keith huffs, but he’s clearly defeated. “Well what do you think I should call her then?” he asks after a second. He gestures towards her carelessly “She likes being called Lance.”

Not able to contain herself hearing Keith say her name, Lance half bounds half teleports to sprawl at his feet with her head in his lap, looking up at him with big puppy dog eyes. Keith's whole face softens as he meets her gaze and scrubs at her neck with his fingers.

He leans his face close to hers and warmly mumbles “What do we call you now?” she answers him by happily lunging forward and trying to lick him on the chin. Keith lets out a loud “Ha!” and rears back, attempting to wrestle her nose away from him with his hands. 

Watching his dog doing everything in her power to clamber into Keith’s chair with him while Keith fights desperately to keep her on the floor wrings more helpless laughter out of Shiro. 

The whole time he’s known Keith, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen him look so carefree and happy. When he first laid eyes that small angry boy with bright eyes and too much potential in the foster home back on Earth, he was struck by how wrong it seemed, that a kid like that could have nobody looking out for him. All he’d wanted to do was make it right. Keith had been guarded and barely surviving then, and even at the Garrison he never really let himself get comfortable. Shiro wonders if that kid could see himself now, laughing and playing with his dog, surrounded by family and friends, if he would believe it. Shiro himself had dared to hope, but even he’s not sure he ever thought it was truly possible.

Shiro feels himself getting emotional and shakes his head. He pushes himself up onto his feet and tries to brush some of the electric blue dog hair off his black pants.

“What about Lanie?” Shiro asks, walking over to lean on the control station in front of Keith “Or Chance? That way she doesn’t have to adjust to a big name change”

Keith looks up from tussling with his dog when Shiro addresses him, then back down at her, as if testing the names out in his head. His earlier frustrations seeming to be entirely forgotten. Shiro is glad to see that he’s unchanged in this way too. Keith may still be hotheaded, but he has always burned himself out just as quickly. 

“I’ve always thought Ysagubar was pretty, for a girl” Krolia says thoughtfully from right behind Keith’s chair. It startles Shiro, who didn't see her move at all, and he’s quietly grateful that all his military training keeps him from jumping and making a fool of himself. Keith doesn’t seem phased at all by this and just kind of glances at her with a considering frown and cocks his head side to side. The dog, Lance Shiro corrects himself, seems to know that they’re talking about her and she gets even more excited and unruly, singleminded in her determination to be the worlds largest lap dog. Shiro can see the tendons standing out and flexing in Keith’s forearms through his armor as has to double his efforts to keep her on the floor.

“Uh, yeah,” Shiro says, after a beat of silence “these are all good options, we just have to pick one we like that Lance will answer to—“

The com channel opens then, interrupting him, and Pidge’s face comes on the screen.

“Hey, Keith” she says shortly “We’re coming up on a planet that has an oxygen based atmosphere. It might be a good place for us to land and stretch our legs.” The half-second of distraction was all it took for Keith to find himself with a lap full of happily wiggling wolf-dog. Pidge raised her eyebrows before she finishes, “Let the animals run around a little.” 

Suddenly Lance joins the call and the screen splits between the two of them. His cow is resting her chin on his shoulder and gently chewing on the ends of his hair, and he’s flicking a glare back and forth between Keith and Pidge, as if he can’t choose which one of them to point it at. 

“Uh, okay, no. Pidge phrased that like a question but it’s definitely not one, Keith. We are going down to that planet whether you like it or not.” Lance spits. He swats Kaltenecker away from his hair “Oxygen means water, and if I can’t wash this cow smell off me by the end of today, we’re all going to be having burgers for dinner tomorrow!” 

Lance stares straight into his pet’s face to deliver the final threat delivered directly. The cow stares dreamily back, apparently unphased, and flicks it’s tongue into its nose.

“Eugh!” Lance squawks in disgust, recoiling. Pidge rolls her eyes and mutes him. Shiro watches all this in amusement as Keith tries to angle his head around the equally excitable Lance on his lap so he can talk without getting a mouth full of blue dog hair.

“Thanks Pidge.” Keith says, choosing to ignore the human Lance’s outbursts completely. Silently on screen, Lance facial expressions get more cartoonish as his mouth flaps open and closed like an angry fish. “Some of us,” Keith buries his hands into his dog’s chest fur and shakes her playfully, before looking directly at human Lance “Need to get outside and burn off some energy. Go ahead and send everybody the coordinates, Pidge. Alright team, lets take a rest stop!”

Lance looks caught between elation and outrage, and Pidge just smirks at him. Shiro can hear her typing for a second before an image of a planet and a few rows of coordinate information appear on a screen of the black lion’s control station.

The communication lines suddenly flood with noise and Shiro can hear the whole team chattering excitedly about landing save for Lance. Pidge must still him muted.

——-

In the quiet cockpit of the red lion, Lance looks hard at the two cards on the screen of his tablet. A five a nine, which isn’t great. They’re both hearts, but there are no other hearts in the three cards displayed in the green box on the com screen between the video feeds of Pidge and Hunk, so that doesn’t help him much. He narrows his eyes and presses two fingers against his lips, letting his eyes drift up slyly to study the faces of his two opponents. As usual, Pidge’s blank and slightly bored expression gives nothing away, and she raises one hand to push her glasses up her nose, ignoring him. He slides his focus to Hunk. The big guy looks a maybe a little nervous, but Lance thinks that also could just be his face. He looks back down to his own cards as if to check if maybe there was something he missed, but they’re just as middling as he remembers. Still, it’s not the worst hand he’s had today.

“Five gak” Pidge says, breaking the silence. 

Hunk shakes his head “I fold”

Lance gapes at him comically “She hasn’t even put all the cards out! You can’t quit like this every time!”

“Nope, too late” Hunk says, pushing back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest “I don’t like my cards, I don’t have anything good and I definitely can’t win. I fold.”

Lance shrugs one shoulder with a dismissive snort and scrunches up his face to try to look Pidge right in her beady eyes. Her glasses are reflecting too much light from the screen though, and he can’t quite see through them.

“I’ll match that” he says after he feels enough time has probably passed for him to feasibly have weighed his odds. He doesn’t really know how much a gak is worth, so he figures he has nothing real to lose. Pidge taps something a couple of times on a touch screen and the image of two more cards appear on Lance’s com screen with the other three. Between the five cards on the table and the two in his hand he can’t make much of anything, but one thing you can definitely say about Lance is that he never lets the hand he’s dealt stop him from playing to win. Lance bites his lip to keep himself from grinning. Okay, he thinks, time to bluff.  
“I bet five gak” Pidge says again.

“I’ll raise you ten gak and I’ll do your laundry” Lance says, feeling smug. Pidge hates doing her laundry, as evidenced by the fact that since the castle blew up and the automatic laundry services with it, she seems to have elected just to let herself stink. It’s been a challenge carving out a hygiene routine while traveling in the lions for all of them, Lance knows, because he lives for self-care and even he has been struggling, but Pidge is the worst offender by far. Two weeks into this cross-universe road trip, and he’s pretty sure if the stench in the green lion’s cockpit could be weaponized, it could knock out Sendak in one hit. He’s hedging his bets that she’ll decide the threat of doing a chore is too much of a risk and fold. It’s his only play.

Pidge raises an eyebrow “twenty gak and I’ll do your laundry for a month.” 

Well, shit, Lance thinks. He pales a little. He knows it’s just his dumb pride that makes him keep charging forward in situations like this where he knows failure is inevitable, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier for him to admit defeat. Not gonna happen, especially not to Pidge. She’s almost as bad as Keith. He swallows twice and tries to hold out what he knows is probably false hope that Pidge is just bluffing harder than he is.

“Alright fine,” he says with a careless shrug, resigned to his fate “lets see them then.”

Pidge taps her touch screen three times and two aces appear on the com screen next to her. Her carefully blank expression melts into a smile that’s positively gleeful. Lance shrieks in outrage, which startles Kaltenecker awake from where she was sleeping standing up a couple of feet behind Lance. She blinks her eyes sleepily and balefully moos, looking into the middle distance.

“You cheated! You definitely cheated!” Lance crows, pointing a dramatic finger in Pidge’s direction “Hunk back me up, she programed this game so that she’d always win! That’s cheating! That win doesn’t count!”

Hunk holds up both his hands and tries to pretend he isn’t also laughing at Lance’s misfortune “Leave me out of this Lance, you shouldn’t have kept betting if you knew your cards were bad.”

Pidge doesn’t drop her shit-eating grin. One of her junkyard tribbles has floated into her lap and she strokes it absently, and it makes her look like a cartoon villain. It suits her, Lance thinks uncharitably. 

“I didn’t cheat you big baby. You and Hunk can check out the code if you don’t believe me. I don’t need to cheat to beat you at poker.” Pidge says.

Lance splutters “What’s that supposed to mean?” he yelps.

“It means you have the worst pokerface I’ve ever seen in my life!” Pidge snorts back.

Lance makes a noise of pure outrage and windmills his arms. Neither of his friends seems particularly phased by his antics. 

“Excuse you! I have an amazing pokerface! Hunk, tell her I have an amazing pokerface!” he insists loudly.

Hunk, who is openly laughing at him at this point, just shakes his head “You have a very expressive face Lance. A lot of the time that’s a good thing!” he says haltingly “Just, not poker.”

Pidge cackles as Lance screams again. 

“You’re both conspiring against me!” he shouts “I’m not playing with you guys anymore. I’m hanging up. Your games are rigged!” 

“You still owe me a month of laundry!” Pidge singsongs at the same time Hunk says “Wait, Lance—“ but Lance switches off his com link, cutting them both off.

“Yeah, yeah” Lance grumbles.

The sudden silence in the red lion has a nearly physical presence compared to the laughter of his friends, and he already regrets hanging up on them. If it weren’t for Kaltenecker’s slightly snuffly breathing Lance doesn’t think he could stand it. He’s still not used to flying his lion with the links to the rest of the team and the castle closed and no real objective, but since they lost the castle the team has had to adjust to a lot of changes, and radio silence for long stretches of flying is part of it. Lance is often bored these days and a little lonely, but he starts to feel a little like he’s imposing when he keeps any of his team mates on the line for too long, so he thinks he’d better just get used to it.

Kaltenecker lets out another soft moo and Lance stretches and gets out of his chair to scratch at her cheeks.

“Hey sweet beautiful girl, sorry I woke you up from your nap” he coos, playing with her ears. He likes to tickle them with his fingertips to make her flick them back and forth. When he used to take Hunk with him to take care of her back on the castle, Hunk would always laugh and tell him to stop annoying her. Lance wiggles his fingers into the bristly hairs, chasing after them when she swings them away, and pretends he’s not missing his friend. She snorts, but doesn’t pull away, and Lance is almost painfully grateful that at least someone out here in space always wants his attentions.

Kaltenecker shakes her head back and forth quickly like she’s trying to dislodge a particularly persistent fly and sneezes on the sleeve of Lance’s jacket.

“Bleh,” Lance says, and makes a face while roughly scrubs at his sleeve. 

“God bless you, what a big sneeze” he continues cooing at her and kisses her right in the middle of her forehead.

“You know what time it is sweet girl, hold on.” he sings to her, walking away and over to the chest where he keeps the green cow-safe nutrient dense goo cubes he made with Coran and Hunk before they left. When he opens it up, the the red lion cockpit fills immediately with the smell and he just barely avoids making a face. The cubes smell strongly of pond scum, and a little bit like apples, sort of like maybe if you overheard someone describing apples loudly while you were sitting in a bog. He grabs one and holds it at arms length, closing the lid to the chest as quickly as he can. Kaltenecker turns to amble away in an attempt to escape her dinner, but the cockpit of the red lion is small, and Lance is determined.

“Does my princess want a little snack?” he asks in a baby voice, valiantly ignoring her attempt to avoid him. He wiggles the grapefruit-sized cube as appetizingly as he can. The jiggle is upsetting.

She doesn’t want it, but Lance makes her eat it anyway. Sometimes that’s what parenthood is about.

Lance pats her on the shoulder comfortingly and surreptitiously tries to wipe the goo and cow slobber off his hand at the same time. He scratches at her neck in what he hopes is a decent enough apology, but she turns her head away to avoid looking at him and leans to try to stand on his toes. 

“Ungrateful” He huffs, stalking back to his seat “Some princess you are.”

Speaking of princesses, theres one paladin that Lance misses most of all since they’ve all been segregated in their separate lions. He groans and sinks low into his chair. Thinking about Allura makes him feel messy and stupid. He rubs his hands through his hair and down his face, and then winces when he remembers they’re still damp with Kaltenecker’s spit. 

He doesn’t even think things are going that badly with Allura, he just wishes he knew where he stood with her.

He knows she likes him, as a person and a friend, but he likes her so much it makes his teeth ache. He wishes he could call her, talk to her, see her face, but if he were to call her he doesn’t even know what he’d say. It would feel like annoying her, and he knows from experience that annoying her makes him feel smaller than dust. He sinks lower in his chair.

Kaltenecker bumps him with her nose, interrupting his pity party. Lance sits up and scratches her on the nose in greeting.

“That was fast. Pretty ladies like you can never stay mad at me for too long, huh. That’s part of my charm.” Lance says, but his heart’s not in it. He scratches the cow on the nose with three fingers until she ducks her nose away.

“You know, maybe I should call Allura” Lance says after a minute, “What do I have to lose, right? She’s probably just as bored as I am, sitting in blue. Why shouldn’t I call her?” 

Kaltenecker blinks her big eyes at him. 

Lance grins at her “Thanks, you’re the smartest and best girl I know” he says affectionately. He pauses “After Allura obviously.” He pauses again “And Pidge too I guess.” he thinks for a second and then settles on “Well you’re the smartest girl here in the red lion” and kisses her right on the nose.

———

Lance regrets opening a com link with Allura almost the second he does it. For one thing, she does not seem like she was just as bored as he was. She seemed to be in the middle of laughing and talking with Coran and Romelle, and now the three of them are just staring expectantly at him, which already is making his insides squirm. For another, it doesn’t help that he can see a small image of himself at the bottom corner of his video call, and he can see that he looks really bad. His skin is pallid, his hair is lank, and he otherwise just looks dirty. He feels like a gross interrupting creep, but he can’t exactly turn back now. He gives the Alteans the best smile he can muster and forges ahead. 

“Uh, hey Allura, um, Romelle and Coran. Hows it going?” he winces internally when they glance around questioningly at each other, but tries to pretend like he didn’t notice. 

“Hello Lance! How’s traveling in the red lion treating you?” Coran’s asks in his friendly, booming voice. God bless Coran, Lance thinks. Of the three faces he can see on screen right now, his is the only one who genuinely looks happy to see him. The girls don’t look upset exactly, but they seem like they’re just politely waiting for him to get to point. Still, they’re being really nice about it, which Lance appreciates.

“Pretty good,” Lance says, wishing more than anything he had something cool and interesting to say right now “Just wondering how the rest of the team was doing. I just got off with Hunk and Pidge. Just wanted to see how you…all were.” Lance trails off, hoping to God he sounds only a quarter as awkward as he feels.

“Oh!” Allura says, not unkindly “We’re all doing, um, well! Just sharing stories Voltron and of old Altea.” 

“That’s cool, that’s cool” Lance says, his voice too loud. He feels a little out of control, the way he always does when Allura talks to him. Kaltenecker rest her head on his shoulder and plays with her nose unthinkingly, letting his fingers lightly touch on the whiskers there. “You know, I always wanted to learn more about Altea myself. And as far as Voltron goes, uh, you are talking to the longest serving paladin” he says, with what he thinks is a dashing smile. He desperately hopes he doesn’t sound like a tool.

The smile Allura gives him for that is incredibly pretty and only a little forced, which Lance counts as a small victory. 

“I suppose that is technically true. I’m happy for you to listen in. And interject your elder paladin wisdom, of course” she says lightly, and Lance would be floating on air except that as she’s talking he catches Romelle staring hard at him and frowning. Lance feels unstoppable now, though. Anytime Allura makes time for him he feels like he could take on the whole Galra empire without his Lion and win. Compared to that, getting Romelle to like him should be a piece of cake. He’ll just have to launch a charm offensive. He’s pretty good at that, usually.

“Romelle,” Lance practically purrs her name, lowering his eyes and laying it on as thick as he dares “would it be alright with you if I join you ladies for a bit?”

Two faint spots of color rise on Romelle’s cheeks as her hands fly up to tangle in her hair, which strokes Lance’s ego something fierce. He puffs up a bit more. Watching someone melt to his advances so easily is one of the few things that makes him feel genuinely good about himself. Romelle widens her eyes slightly and she shifts eye contact away from Lance.

“It’s fine with me but uh, I think your, animal is being sick on your shoulder” she says bluntly, after a second. 

Lance deflates like a balloon. He looks to the side and sees that Kaltenecker has drooled green sludge all over the sleeve of his jacket. His eyes bug out of his head and his shame turns his face bright red. Romelle hides a giggle behind her hand.

“Yuck, gross, no she’s not sick this is a normal cow thing. She does this after she eats sometimes, ugh” Lance stammers out, mortified, looking around for something to wipe his sleeve on “I am so so sorry you guys had to see that, it’s so gross. I’m just gonna… go. Clean this up. I’ll talk to you later Allura. Romelle. Coran” and he closes the connection without waiting for a reply.

Lance flings his dirty jacket off and onto the floor and faceplants directly onto his control station, groaning loudly.

“That was horrible!” he moans. Kaltenecker nibbles his hair comfortingly and Lance just groans louder. He sits up and drags his hands over his face, whining “Why did I let you talk me into that?” 

He pulls out a mirror from a pocket in his chair and studies his appearance for the first time in a couple days. He looks at his greasy face and hair in disgust before tossing it to the side with a frustrated yell. No wonder Allura didn't want to talk to him. He turns to Kaltenecker and narrows his eyes.

“You are a terrible wingwoman. See if I ever take your advice again.” he snips at the cow, who stares back at him blankly with big cow eyes, failing to look contrite. 

Pidge interrupts his meltdown by opening a public channel to let Keith know the team is coming up on a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere, and Lance nearly breaks his hand in his haste to join the call. Like Hell is he going to risk his looks and therefor his entire romantic future on Keith’s ability to take a break for once, he thinks angrily. Not a fucking chance.

————-

Allura Romelle and Coran sit in silence for a beat after Lance hangs up on them before Romelle’s giggling resumes. 

“He’s funny, is he always like that?” she asks.

“I’m afraid so,” Allura says, but her tone is impossibly fond “That’s Lance. He’s always good for a laugh.” She laughs lightly, thinking of her fellow paladin. “He’s also very caring, and definitely the paladin to go to if you, if you have something on your mind. Even if you just need someone to listen. He has a very special knack for knowing what to say to make you feel better.” she trails off, voice soft. 

There’s no reply to this and Allura looks up. Looking over at her new companion, she sees the girl clenching her fists, face gone stony, eyes hard and mouth in a small frown. She winces a little as she replays the words she just said back to herself in her head.

“I don’t think theres anything anyone can say that would make me feel better” Romelle says at last. Her voice is small but tight. 

“No, of course not! I didn’t mean—” Allura starts, but Romelle cuts her off with a shake of her head. 

“I know, of course you didn’t” she says, but her smile is gone “is he dear to you?” she asks, changing the subject.

Allura deflates, “He is,” she starts, and then sighs “He is a dear friend.” she finishes. The change in her mood from fond to pensive is as blatant as it is awkward. From the corner of her eyes, Allura can see Coran trying to slip away to give her privacy in a way she assumes he thinks is subtle. Boy trouble is not what he signed up for

“But you wish he were more?” Romelle asks, when it’s clear Allura isn’t planning on explaining further.

Allura closes her eyes and shakes her head. “No,” she sighs finally “I don’t. But he does, and he’s become such a wonderful Paladin. And a wonderful Man.” 

Allura spares a glance at Coran who is pretending to study what appears to be a perfectly identical panel of the blue lion’s interior with extreme interest. She’s pitifully grateful for his social graces, she thinks, as she is of most things about him. 

“I think, I should love him.” she continues, halting and pained staring blankly out the window at the stars ahead of them, “I know if I could just try, he would do anything to see me cared for. To make me happy” a hand on Allura’s shoulder interrupts her guilty rambling. She gasps and lifts her eyes to meet Romelle’s fierce gaze. 

“I don’t think this is a situation where ‘should’ applies, princess” Romelle says gently. Allura swallows once before replying.

“I know,” she says. “It feels terrible though” 

Romelle pats her on the shoulder encouragingly, and even though Allura knows it isn’t possible, the warmth seems to seep through her Paladin armor and reach her skin. 

“If he’s as wonderful as you think he is, he’ll understand” Romelle says, withdrawing her hand. For a moment Allura just sits, mourning the loss of contact before she realizes the other girl is waiting on her reply.

“Yes!” she says, too loudly “Yes” she says more quietly “I know, it’s just not an ideal situation. He’s important to me and I want him to be happy” Romelle finally cracks a half smile at her again.

“I definitely don’t envy you, but I think you’ll both be alright. You’re the paladins of Voltron. You can afford to wait for love to sweep you off your feet. Both of you can.” she says, holding eye contact. Allura stares deeply into her eyes for a moment.

“You’re right,” she says after a pause, letting her face relax back into a smile “Thank you, those are wise words, and they bring me comfort to hear. I only wish I could return the favor.”

Allura sees Romelle’s eyes close and her face go blank again, and wishes she didn’t feel so powerless in the face of the other girl’s pain.

“Voltron will liberate my people from the Galra. Once and for all.” Romelle’s voice is quiet and hard when she finally speaks her reply “Knowing no other Alteans meet the fate my family did is comfort enough.” 

Allura stares as the girl before her steadily meets her gaze, and Allura feels strangely like she suddenly can’t breathe. Romelle could be made of quintessence enriched steel, Allura thinks, as if seeing her for the first time. This is a person who will never yield or break, and it dawns on Allura that, for all she and the Paladin’s of Voltron were the weapon, this is the person who brought down Lotor. This woman, armed with nothing but her own grief, toppled a blood emperor. She covers Romelle’s hand with her own.

“I will make sure they’re safe” she whispers fiercely, “We all will. I swear it.”

Romelle smiles at that, and Allura thinks this is the most important promise she’s ever made.

————

“Lance!” Keith calls out, slashing at more of the forest undergrowth with his sword. The black lion was the last of the five lions to touch down on this planet, and the moment they did, Lance had bolted out like a shot. She’s never done anything like this before and Keith is sure she can fend for herself, but these days he starts to feel jumpy when she’s not by his side. 

“Lance, cut it out this isn’t funny! Where are you! Lance!” Keith bellows at the top of his lungs.

“Ack! Quiznack Keith, shut up! I’m over here, Jesus” Keith hears an answering call off to his left and pauses, weighing his options. He looks up at the sun. It’s only about midday, but he has no idea how long daylight lasts on this planet. He has to find his dog by the end of the day, or he’s gonna go ballistic. At the same time, he’s completely unwilling to just yell out in the middle of a forest where his teammate can hear him that he named his dog Lance, so he’s at a bit of an impasse. 

Lets make this fast, he thinks, annoyed but already turning to trudge in the direction he heard Lance’s shout from.

“Where are you?” he yells.

“Keith, fuck!” he hears Lance’s strained voice shout it’s reply “I said shut up!”

“Are you in trouble?” He yells before he can stop himself, and he’s already running, barreling forward, low to the ground and holding his armored hands in front of his face, no longer bothering with cutting the away the underbrush. If Lance was in danger out here, there wasn’t time. 

“No! Keith, ahh!” he hears shouted back, but he’s already bursting into a clearing, holding his blade at the ready and whipping his head around to scan the area apparent threats. As he looks around he can see that he’s in a grassy clearing surrounding what he thinks might be a small lake. The scene looks peaceful and Keith lowers his blade, relaxing slightly. 

The water looks deep and clear, and there are jagged rocks on one side where several sets of clothes are laying out to dry. He thinks some of them might belong to Pidge, but he can’t be sure. On a smooth rock jutting out by the waters edge close to the grass, Lance is sat surrounded by a veritable mountain of bottles and tubs. He’s only dressed in two towels, one on his head and one around his waist, and Keith’s brain registers this detail as important for some reason. His face has some kind of thick pale blue cream on it, but the rest of his bared skin looks like it’s maybe oily, and maybe tinted with some kind of gold tinted shimmer. Keith stares at his shoulders trying to figure it out and is almost distracted for a full five seconds from the happy wolf-dog trying to wiggle out of his grasp. 

“Lance!” Keith exclaims involuntarily in a relieved laugh “There you are!” No longer content to be kept away from her person, his dog vanishes from under Lance’s fingers in a pop. For a fraction of a second Keith gets to laugh as the paladin stumbles to correct his balance, dropping the comb he was holding and barely catching himself from falling over before he’s crushed under one hundred and fifty pounds of happy puppy. 

Keith hears Lance’s mocking laughter even before he starts to get up. His dog Lance is wagging her whole body and trying to lick his face, and he buries his hands in her fur trying not to laugh too. He’s glad one of them had a good morning. He sits up and crushes his face into her neck and then pulls back wonderingly. She’s damp, sure, but her hair feels like silk against his cheek. She smells nice too, which isn’t even something he’d ever considered was possible. 

He hears Lance’s laughter tapering off and clinking that indicates he’s getting ready to leave.

“Alright congratulations Keith, you found me. Where’s the fire?” Lance asks him. His voice is muffled, and when Keith turns to look he sees Lance is using the towel from his head to wipe the blue cream off his face. Lance’s hair is damp too, and Keith finds himself wondering if Lance’s hair is soft too. It takes him a minute to realize Lance is waiting for him to say something.

“What?” Keith asks, stupidly. Whatever oil Lance has on his skin definitely has gold flecks in it. They catch the light when he moves around. He stands up and the towel around his waist shifts a little bit, drawing Keith’s attention. For a second Keith thinks it’s going to fall down, but Lance just reaches down absently to adjust it. Keith starts breathing again. He didn’t realize he’d stopped. Lance crosses his arms.

“You were running around screaming my name like a crazy person? You totally freaked your dog out, by the way. When she heard you yelling all she started trying to chase into the woods after you, which would have totally defeated the purpose of me giving her a bath. She didn’t even let me brush all the conditioner out, but it’s okay to leave in, so it should be fine.” he cocks a hip and shakes his head as if getting himself back on track. Both of his arms open as if to say ‘here I am’ and he levels Keith with an annoyed stare. “So what do you need?”

“Oh, uh” Keith starts, unsure what he’s going to say. He pets his dog absently, and even through his gloves he can tell how smooth her hair is. He looks at Lance’s skin as he shifts his weight and whatever he has on it catches the light again. Does all of Lance feel this smooth? Like, his skin too? Is this just normal for him? Lance flexes his hands impatiently and Keith’s eyes widen. What is happening to him. He has to say something fast. 

“I just didn’t know where you were” he spits out, tripping a little over his tongue. He can see on Lance’s face that he’s confused, and Keith wishes he’d planned for this eventuality at all. 

“Yeah,” he continues, trying to sound casual “When I landed I didn’t see you. I was worried.” He’s thankful for his time with the blade and the work he had to do to learn to keep his emotions under control, because he’s able to say all this with a completely straight face. Lance narrows his eyes anyway. 

“Did you not ask anyone? I didn’t exactly sneak away. Everyone should have known where I was” Lance says slowly, as if talking to a child. Keith can feel his temper flaring up, even though he knows Lance isn’t wrong. 

“No. I didn’t have time.” Keith says shorty, setting his jaw. He sees Lance’s nostrils flare, and thinks it’s probably time to make a strategic retreat. The next sentence that comes out of Keith’s mouth happens with zero input from his brain. “Why are you so shiny?”

Keith sees Lance freeze, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly before he gasps out “What?”

Keith shrugs, casually plucking leaves and sticks out of his hair and refusing to acknowledge he’s embarrassing himself “Your, uh” and he gestures vaguely at all of Lance “you’re all sparkly” he finishes, defensive. 

Lance stares at Keith for a second like he’s sprouted a second head before glancing down at his own chest in the same bewildered fashion. When he looks back up at Keith he almost looks sheepish and he crosses his arms over his chest. 

“Its a uh, hydrating body mask,” Lance says, shrugging one shoulder. Keith can tell the other boy doesn’t seem to want to talk to him about this, so Keith isn’t sure why he’s asking. All he really knows is he's never been so curious about anything in his life. Lance seems to interpret his silence as something he needs to defend against, because he turns his face away and his voice gets defensive as he continues. 

“The air the lions make is too dry. It makes me ashy.” Lance huffs. 

Keith doesn’t know what that means, but he nods anyway. He wonders if he should stand up. It’s probably weird to have this conversation sitting on the ground, he thinks, but his dog is still sat in his lap pinning him down, and the underdeveloped part of Keith’s brain that manages social interactions tells him that if he stands up Lance is going to make him leave. Keith doesn’t understand why, but he knows he doesn’t want that to happen yet. He sinks his fingers into Lances soft blue fur and pushes ahead with the conversation.

“Is that what you did to La—uh, my dog?” Keith asks, playing with the strands of hair between his fingers. Lance is still staring at him like he’s lost his mind, but he’s starting to relax as if he’s realized that Keith isn’t planning on making fun of him. Keith doesn’t know what it means, but seeing Lance’s walls come down makes him feel almost hungry. But not actually hungry, because he likes the way it feels. 

“No Keith, all I did to your dog was wash and brush her. And put a little conditioner in her fur. And trimmed her nails a little. Have you honestly never washed your dog before?” Lance says. He’s smirking now, and Keith can tell that the question is meant to tease him, but instead of feeling agitated like he typically does when he’s the butt of a joke, he just feels weirdly warm. 

“Wow, no” Keith says earnestly, “I mean I’ve rinsed her off when she’s gotten muddy, but I’ve definitely never done anything like that.” Keith says quickly, seeing Lance’s jaw drop slightly, possibly in outrage. Keith buries his nose into her neck.

“What smells so good?” he asks, and when he looks up at Lance again his eyes are wide and his face is red. Keith wonders what he could have possibly said that would have embarrassed Lance this time. Lance is staring at him consideringly and Keith reflexively checks his hair for any leaves and sticks he might have missed earlier. 

“Probably my shampoo or uh, conditioner” Lance says, voice a little shaky.

“Oh,” Keith says, letting his voice go softer too. He doesn’t know why this is significant but he can tell by how much Lance seems affected that it must be. They hold each other’s eye contact for a long moment before Lance breaks it to look away, seeming a little flustered. Keith has nearly died on missions countless times, and he’s no stranger to the thrill of danger. Something about this conversation is triggering the same clenching feeling he gets in his guts before he does something he knows is stupid and might get him killed. It’s not exactly the same though because when he's fighting for his life his head always feels clear, and right now he can feel his thoughts buzzing around in his head like slow stupid bees. So he doesn’t know what that could mean.

Lance goes to check on the clothes he has laid out to dry and Keith finds himself wishing he had something else to ask to keep the conversation going. He surreptitiously smells himself and winces. It’s not great. The idea of Lance walking over and accidentally smelling Keith right now while the other boy smells, Keith sniffs the dog in his lap again, _nice,_ is unthinkable to him all of a sudden. He shoves Lance out of his lap and pushes himself to his feet, ignoring her offended boof. He needs to at least rinse off before Lance can smell him, he thinks. He starts tugging off his armor as efficiently as he can, hoping vaguely he can get to the water before Lance can notice his smell. 

“What are you doing?!” Lance yelps. Keith freezes halfway out of his armor like he’s been caught. When he looks over at Lance the boy is crushing his pile of freshly clean clothes to his chest so tightly his knuckles are white. His mouth is hanging open and his face is almost purple it’s so flushed and Keith thinks he probably should be embarrassed but he isn’t. 

Keith looks down at his bare chest and then back up at Lance, confused. 

“I was going to hop in?” he says. His voice comes out steady, which he privately thinks is a miracle. 

“Oh my god,” Lance groans, shimmying into his jeans underneath his towel and pulling his t-shirt over his head in a hurry. Lance throws the towel over his shoulder and turns to leave. Keith stares hard at his back and his brain helpfully reminds him that Lance didn’t put on any underwear. Keith frowns at himself, unsure why he thought that was significant. 

“Uh, okay, that’s fine. Just bring my stuff back when you’re done” Lance says, still walking away from Keith. Dog Lance begins to trot after him, which surprises Keith, but doesn’t leaving him with the unsettled feeling he had earlier when he couldn’t find her. Lance stops however, pushing her to turn around. 

“No, you stay.” he says, when she keeps following him putting one of his hands on her back and pushing her into a sit, “you stay here with your daddy.” He says the last part in a soft baby voice just for Lance to hear, but Keith has better hearing than most and it makes him snort. Lance looks over at him at that and looks absolutely mortified, which for some reason makes Keith feel amazing. He hadn’t realized he’d missed Lance this much, but he resolves to try to spend more time with him from now on. Lance tries to leave again and the dog stands up, making the boy sigh in frustration. 

“Keith, can you please call your dumb dog? She won’t stop following me.” Lance calls over his shoulder.

Keith freezes where he was peeling off the bottom half of his paladin armor. This is it, he thinks. He looks at the back of Lance’s head where the other boy is starting to impatiently turn around, and he remembers Shiro laughing at him, saying how weird this was. The strange feeling in his guts turns to ice. No, he thinks, this isn’t it. 

“Bance!” He yells wildly, slapping his hand against his thigh with so much rapid force he thinks he might bruise. “Bance come here girl!”

Lance tilts her furry blue head and regards him curiously. 

“Bance, come here! Good dog, good girl” Keith yells desperately, beating his thighs with both hands now. The dog starts walking towards him cautiously, and Keith feels his insides unclench. “Good girl good girl good girl” he chants, and when she finally reaches him he sinks down to pet her enthusiastically with both hands. Her fur is still unbelievably soft.

Across the clearing, Lance has stopped walking. He’s looking at Keith over his shoulder with a look of complete disbelief on his face. 

“Her name is... Bance?” Lance asks with a scoff.

Keith winces and tries to think of something to say to that fast. 

“It means ‘wolf’ in Galra?” he says, weakly. Lance raises both of his eyebrows scoffs loudly.

“God, of course it does!” Lance laughs, turning back around. Keith watches Lance’s retreating back as his shoulders shake with laughter. “Why am I not surprised. Classic Keith!” Keith hears Lance laughing to himself even after he disappears from view, and it almost makes him smile. He's always hated being laughed at, but at least it's a nice laugh. At least Lance just thinks he's boring instead of weird. 

Keith wades out into the water and it's _cold_. He grits his teeth and holds his breath, dunking his head under the water. He stays under the surface for a second scrubbing at his hair to get the dirt out like he usually does until he has to come up for air. As soon as his head comes out of the water, he sees his dog running back and forth on the banks, barking excitedly. He paddles lazily over to her to scratch comfortingly at her head, and she licks his hand happily. Keith squints the pile of products Lance left for him to use, and realizes he has a problem.

He has no idea what any of this stuff is. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got so long I literally don't know what to tell you. I'm like, deeply invested in all of these characters and I want to write all of them. I have no idea if anyone will actually enjoy this or not. I barely got to work on it this week because my deadlines at work keep getting missed because parts aren't ready and my whole team is in deep trouble, so I didn't edit this at all.
> 
> I'm posting it though, because I need positive reinforcement to take me into the weekend.
> 
> I might go back and edit this chapter later, heads up.

“What do you think we can do about this” says Pidge, waving her orange handheld tablet underneath his nose. Hunk ducks back to keep from being whacked in the face by her enthusiasm and takes the device from her gingerly to read through the numbers on the screen. 

His brow creases slightly as he reaches the bottom still doesn’t understand what it is she’s worrying about. He tries to use his finger to scroll down and his frown deepens when there’s no second page.

“I don’t get it,” Hunk says after a second, looking back up. “What am I missing here? The energy expenditures are well within range of what they always are when we're flying the lions. Why do you think we need to do anything?” Pidge grabs her handheld back from him and starts tapping at it rapidly. 

“I thought the same thing at first,” she says, without looking up. “Something felt off though, with Green. Like she was fatigued or something. I couldn’t shake it. I checked all the flight-time numbers four or five times before I saw it.”

She turns her tablet so that Hunk can see it it again and points at it. The model on the screen shows the lion’s multiple engines and connective plumbing with different colors to reflect rates of quintessence burn-off, and Hunk takes a second to study the formulas Pidge derived to project these distributions. It all seems solid, but still within normal range, he thinks. He still doesn’t see what Pidge wants him to, and it’s starting to stress him out a little.

“Just tell me where to look, Pidge. This all still looks regular to me.” he says finally. He looks up at Pidge to see her eyes sparkling behind her glasses, and he’s reminded why he likes working with her so much. The way she treats problems like they’re exciting challenges instead of nauseatingly scary is changing him maybe more than anything else he’s encountered in space. She taps the screen in her hands a couple of times, but keeps her eyes trained on his face to see his reaction. 

“Look what happens when I increase time.” she says, as she switches out the coefficient. The numbers jump up exponentially and most of the tubes on the model turn red. Oh, fuck, Hunk thinks.

“Oh fuck” he says, taking the hand held back from her to study the model more closely. 

“Pretty much, yeah” Pidge says with a grim smile, seeming pleased they’re back on the same page. “We need to figure out some way to divert the stress flow to the individual engines. The lions weren’t built with this kind of sustained flight in mind. Whenever they’re being flown, they think it’s a battle. It’s how they were designed; they weren’t made to give less than 100%” 

“They can’t make it to Earth like this.” Hunk says distractedly, only half listening. He’s changing around variables on Pidge’s tablet at random to see where the failure point is, chewing on his lip.

“Yeah, they’ll burn up.” Pidge says, nodding at him “I’m pretty sure the only reason why they haven’t so far is because of they’re bonded with all of us. They know we need them and they don’t want to let us down.”

Hunk looks up at Pidge who meets his gaze dead on, only looking mildly embarrassed. Intellectually, Hunk knows there’s more to the Lions than can be explained by raw numbers, but it isn’t something he dwells on very often. He tends to tune Coran and Allura out when the explanation of something to do with the lions or Voltron veers too far into what he considers to be ‘magic’ territory. Lance, he knows, talks with his lions as if they were actual people rather than super advanced warships, but Hunk hasn’t ever really felt comfortable thinking like that. He always assumed Pidge was closer to his end of this spectrum. Pidge hunches her shoulders and turns a little pink, but otherwise looks unapologetic. 

“I don’t know how else to explain it. By even my most generous projections they should have crapped out by now.” she shrugs. “It’s like when we brought our lions back online by just, feeling connected to them really hard. Except in reverse. Instead of coming back to life they’re just… refusing to die.” Pidge explains. 

Hunk nods his head, half listening, and goes back to typing. A few more systems on the screen switch from red to blueish-green. Hunk lets himself breathe now that he can see a solution starting to present itself. Pidge cranes her neck to see what he’s doing. 

“All that magic stuff is cool, but I don’t know enough about it to help us.” says Hunk absently. “Luckily, the lions are also mechanical, and that’s a lot easier to work with.” he says, showing Pidge the screen of her tablet while he taps through the changes he’s made. “I don’t think we can change the functioning of the individual engines, because the hardware composites are literally the most durable materials in the known universe. We wouldn’t be able to make significant design changes without serious tools and time we don’t have.” says Hunk. Pidge deflates a little, looking grim.

“This is why I wanted to talk to an engineer because I thought that might be the case. This all still sounds pretty bad, but it doesn’t sound like you’re stressing as hard as you usually do. What are you thinking?” Pidge asks.

“I’m glad you asked!” Hunk says, pleased “The Lion’s engines work a lot like rocket engines back home. The fuel injector lines pump quintessence into a larger chamber where it combusts, and that creates the thrust we use to fly around in space. Now, the way the individual engines actually function isn’t something we’re going to be able to change, but we _can_ change the protocol instructions and triggers so they fire in a sequence instead of all at once—“ 

“And then the inactive engines would would get intermittent rests! It might trick the recharging and repairing processes that activate when the Lions are powered down into triggering while we’re still in flight! That’s brilliant Hunk!” she says excitedly, snatching back her hand held and checking the numbers eagerly. 

“Boost me up, I want to see if I’ll need to enter in basic commands to override the quintessence injectors for the thruster engines directly” Pidge says, breathless, looking up at Hunk expectantly. Hunk laughs at her, her enthusiasm catching, and obediently holds out a hand for her to use as a foothold to clamber onto his shoulders. He winces as her foot nearly kicks him in the face as she twists herself around and squeezes in through a vent on the leg of the yellow lion. He can hear sounds of her moving around for a minute before she quiets.

“Hunk, yes!” calls Pidge, her voice muffled and echoing “This is definitely going to work!” 

Hunk lets out half an elated whoop, before he’s startled by Lance crashing out of the forest, and clutching armfuls unfolded laundry. Lance looks wet, and the expression on his face is manic and a bit flustered. He briefly looks a little stunned to see the Yellow Lion and his eyes dart around for a second, lighting up when they settle on Hunk. Lance makes a beeline straight for him.

“Hunk! Thank god I found you, I was almost seriously freaking out! It’s so lucky I found you alone, I really need to talk to someone I trust” Lance says hastily. “Oh, uh—“ Hunk starts, trying to let Lance know he isn’t actually as alone as he looks, but Lance ignores him, dropping the clothes in his arms unceremoniously and bulldozing ahead undeterred. 

“I’m a disaster Hunk!” Lance crows, waving his hands in front of his face expressively “You know how I went looking for water to wash up? Well, I was just washing my hair, minding my own business when all of a sudden Bance jumps in the water with me and nearly DROWNS me, which was totally crazy, but like she seemed like she was having a good time and she’s so cute so I ended up washing her hair too” Lance trails off, having seemingly distracted himself. 

Hunk has known Lance for most of his life, so he's used to having to patiently sift through the layers of loosely connected thoughts to get to the core of a Lance story, but this one is losing even him. Usually he at least understands all the individual words being said, even if he has to wait to the end to see how they’re all linked. Right now he feels like an archeologist trying to extrapolate details of a lost civilization from a only few broken shards of pottery. He knows he's missing a lot of the necessary pieces he needs to put this together. 

“Who’s Bance?” he asks, stumped. 

“Oh, Keith’s puppy. The big turquoise-y wolf-dog. It’s a terrible name, apparently it means wolf in Galra, which is like _come on_ Keith, dig a little deeper next time—“ Lance says with a dismissive wave of his hand. Hunk processes that.“That doesn’t sound like any of the Galra words I know.” he says, skeptically. Lance continues on as if he hadn’t heard him.

“That’s not the point!” He wails. “ _Keith_ was going around yelling for me, like just wandering around the planet hollering for me like the Galra are attacking but as soon as he finds me he’s like ‘oh, nothing’s wrong, I just missed you!’” says Lance in a very unflattering and inaccurate impression of the new black paladin. “He like didn’t ask anyone first, which is nuts! It’s totally fucking with my head though because he kept, like, staring at me, and saying weird shit to me like that I _smelled_ good! He’s totally different now, not just like hotter and bigger or whatever, but almost like he’s…calmer? I don’t know how to explain it!” 

“Oh, uh—” Hunk tries to jump in, slightly stunned. He raises his hands slightly and looking around, glancing over his shoulder and remembering Pidge hearing all of this only couple feet behind them. He tries to stop his friend from saying too much and embarrassing himself, but Lance has now reached critical mass and absolutely refuses to be stopped.

“And then! When I’m like ‘uh okay good seeing you Keith’ and turn to go, I look over and he’s started getting naked! And like Keith is fucking _jacked_ now, Hunk. He’s built like a brick shit-house. His chest looks like, like it was sculpted by one of those old-time-y roman sculptor guys. One of the really _really_ gays ones. He’s gotta be fucking with me on purpose.” Lance says, taking a deep breath and rubbing at his mouth, and his eyes reaching peak crazy. 

“Oh, uh, I don’t think, but Lance—“ Hunk tries to interrupt one final time in a last ditch effort preserve any of remaining dignity. It’s a lost cause. 

“He’s _so_ hot, Hunk. It’s going to ruin my life! This is way worse than whatever little dumb crush I had on him or Shiro at the Garrison! The way he was looking at me is going to ruin my life! And like, he came looking for _me_ in the first place, Hunk. _And I was naked!_ ” Lance wheezes, cheeks flushed. “And things were finally turning around with Allura! She and I were finally getting somewhere, she was like starting to see the relationship potential in me after _forever_. I probably like, love her or whatever, but I like wanted to let Keith _raw_ me.” Lance moans, sinking his fingers into his hair and pulling at it, looking distressingly bug-eyed. Hunk reaches over to try to loosen his grip, in a way he hopes is comforting. 

Today’s just a day full of crisis control, Hunk thinks to himself wryly. Coaching Lance through his new-crush freakouts and coming up with solutions to engineering problems were the two things that ate up most of his time to at the Garrison. It’s almost nostalgic, and Hunk sinks back into the role easily. 

“So you’re a hot bisexual mess, I see how that changes anything with Allura.” he says, placating “It sounds like nothing actually happened with Keith, outside of your head, so I think you’re gonna fine.” Hunk says, in a tone he thinks is supportive. 

“No, I get it,” Comes Pidge’s dry voice from inside the yellow lion. “His head is the only place where he actually might have a chance with her. It’s such a shame hearing Lance imaginary cheated in his imaginary relationship with the princess with imaginary Keith. I’ve lost all my imaginary respect for him.” she drawls, voice dripping with sarcasm. 

Lance actually falls on his ass in shock and his face turns purple. Hunk winces a little. He’d almost managed to forget she was there. 

“What’s Pidge doing here!” Lance shouts, sending a betrayed look up at Hunk.

“Sorry buddy, I was trying to warn you.” Hunk says apologetically, shrugging one shoulder. Lance narrows his eyes.

“It’s not like I asked to hear your big gay crisis!” Pidge calls out, not helping. Hunk winces again. Lance pushes himself to his feet and stomps over to the leg of the Yellow Lion concealing the green paladin. 

“Well, _sorry_! Next time I guess I know I need to check if one of my teammates is crawling around in the walls like a _fucking raccoon_!” Lance snaps, stomping over to the Yellow Lion and kicking the metal surface and then yelps when his foot connects. He spends the next few seconds hopping around in pain, and Hunk listens to Pidge’s echoing giggles and resists the urge to laugh too. 

“She was checking something out in the lion” Hunk offers, weakly, but Lance is ignoring him again and doesn’t react. 

“Honestly I’m actually just glad you’re okay, Pidge.” Lance drawls meanly, “I just got through washing all your clothes and they smelled like maybe you’d _died_ in them!” Lance shouts the last part, punctuating it with a thump of his fist against the metal. He hisses and shakes out his hand, and Hunk winces sympathetically again.

“Funny, cause I thought I _was_ gonna die just now listening to you cry about how much you want to lick Keith’s nipples or whatever!” She shouts back. Lance’s jaw drops open as his whole face contorts in outrage and for a second no words come out as he just yells.

“That’s not what I said! I never said that!” he yelps after a second. “You are _such_ a little sister, honestly. I don’t know how I missed that at school. I’m out of here.” Lance says, sticking his nose in the air as he turns to leave. 

“Wait, Lance.” Hunk stumbles to catch up with him “Pidge was just winding you up, but you know she doesn’t care. Don’t storm off.” Hunk says, but he can practically see in Lance’s eyes as he walls himself off.

Lance has his brave face on now, and Hunk knows from experience that he’s too stubborn to listen so soon after a humiliation like this. He needs to let him go off and lick his wounds in peace. Hunk stops following and Lance keeps walking and waves him off. 

“Yeah, that’s great Hunk, thanks. I’ll let you get back to whatever tech stuff you guys were working on and get out of your hair.” he says, dismissively. Hunk sulks back over to the yellow Lion and leans up against the panels hiding Pidge. 

“You could have stayed quiet,” he grumbles. “You didn’t have to hurt his feelings.” 

He hears Pidge snort with laughter and slap the wall. “Good one, Hunk! Lance doesn’t have feelings!” she says.

Hunk bites his lip.

—————

“How can you just say that so boldly? You don’t know _anything_ about them, and already you plan for them to serve you!” Romelle hisses, leaping to her feet. The shocked look on Allura’s face only enrages her further, confirming to her how infuriatingly naive the other girl really is. She doesn’t even realize the hurt she’s causing. 

Allura rises swiftly to her feet, graceful as a dancer even now. In the dappled light of the trees and against the blue of the Lion, the look of shock and pure sorrow painting her perfect face is breathtaking, but Romelle doesn’t let herself be gentled or moved. She has to forcefully remind herself that though she may like looking at Allura, she doesn’t know the girl. She’s learned her lesson already on being wary of pretty saviors with pretty words.

“I did not mean to upset you,” Allura says gently, “but I have a duty to Altea—“ Romelle cuts her off before she can finish

“No,” When Romelle speaks her voice is low and angry “They have _nothing_ to do with you. Lotor combed the universe for surviving Alteans after your father refused to fight for them and left them defenseless. He rounded us up, he kept us subdued, and then he _harvested us_. My brother _gave his life_ to free us from those who would use us only for our power. My parents died. My _lover_ died! And you sit here, ignorant that pain, expecting praise for your plan to raise an Altean army in my home. As if it makes a difference if you leave the quintessence in their bodies when you feed my people’s lives to your war. As thought you have a right to any Altean body that isn’t your own!” she says, in an angry whisper. Romelle’s eyes fill with tears, but her face does not soften. 

Allura looks shell-shocked, and Romelle wonders unkindly if this might be the first time the princess has ever been spoken to like this.

“I, I just wanted to, to offer to train anyone who wanted to join us to overthrow the Galra.” Allura stammers weakly, eyes wide and face bloodless and pale. “No one would be forced against their will, I would never ask that. I wasn’t, I would not, I was never of the mind that the strength of your Altean countrymen would be mine to wield. I had thought to return to them their own power, and lead them, if they chose to fight for a lasting peace from Galra tyranny.” Allura said softly, reaching out an imploring hand to lay on Romelle’s sleeve. Romelle jerks her arm away before she can be touched. 

“And yet you fought alongside Lotor as a weapon of the empire for a time. You developed for the Galra empire under Lotor a weapon of incomparable destructive power.” she spits. Romelle sees Allura flinch and seem to shrink at her words.

“I was mislead by him” she whispers, small and sad “Surely you can understand that. I was taken in by his words of a peaceful empire. I only wanted an end to the war.” Allura looks up at Romelle through her lashes imploringly. 

Romelle feels herself crack, because she actually does believe Allura believes what she’s saying to be the truth, and the mixture of anger and pity warring in her chest cause more tears to break free spill down to drip off her chin. Allura reaches a hesitant hand up to brush the tear-tracks off her cheeks, and Romelle lets her, suddenly despondent. She feels all the fight drain out of her and bites down on her lip to keep herself from sobbing. 

“The fact that you believed that to be possible, that there could be an iteration of the exploitation and occupation happening under the Galra empire that could be considered ‘peaceful,’ makes me scared of you, Allura” Romelle chokes out finally. 

“I’m sorry. You have nothing to fear from me.” Allura says simply, continuing to stroke Romelle’s face lightly with her fingertips. Romelle closes her eyes and steps back away from the contact before speaking again. 

“I need to know that you understand, that you can free the universe with Voltron, but you can’t rule with it.” Romelle says quietly after a moment, taking a deep breath. She doesn’t open her eyes while she waits, and she only hears Allura’s gasp of surprise before a hand grasps hers.

“Romelle, of course. I would never use the power of Voltron for for personal empowerment, that’s something you should _never_ fear for. Voltron is for keeping peace in the galaxy, and it’s paladins will always do what is right.” Allura says, and Romelle opens her eyes to meet Allura’s confident and reassuring gaze. Allura squeezes her hand warmly, the smile on her face blooming like a sunrise. 

Romelle takes a harsh gasp of air and pulls her hand away with a sob. Allura’s perfect brows crease with worry. 

“But _who’s_ peace will you keep?” She gasps, and then she shakes her head violently. and stumbles back several steps.“I’m sorry, I need to go. You just sound so much like him, like Lotor. I just need space to think. I know you aren’t like him. I just need— I’m sorry“ she says, not daring to look back to see the look on Allura’s face as her crying threatens to take over. 

Rather than try to get herself under control, she dashes past Allura’s still outstretched hands and plunges into the undergrowth of the forest to get away. She finally lets herself cry freely as she stumbles forward through the brush, unseeing, until she smacks into something solid and bounces of, momentarily stunned. A pair of strong arms catch her by her shoulders to steady her and keep her from falling, and she blearily looks up into Keith’s dark eyes, which are wide with concern.

“Romelle, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?” he says, sounding alarmed. Romelle scrubs at her face with the sleeves of her dress and tries to get herself together.

“I’m fine.” she says, but her voice sounds watery and unconvincing even to her. Keith frowns.

“You…really don’t look fine.” he says, haltingly. He loosens his grip on her shoulders once he’s certain she’s steady and steps back, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Romelle looks at him more closely and notices his hair’s wet and his face looks pink in a scrubbed raw way. She breathes in deeply and tries to force herself to relax. She lets herself think and she finds she’s actually glad to see him. He’s quiet and serious, but he takes her seriously and he always listens to her. She hasn’t had a lot of friends like that in her life, and she’s happy to have one now.

Lance appears by her side then and barks, because wherever Keith is Lance is never far behind. The dog worms her head under Romelle’s hands and leaning her full weight into Romelle’s side. Romelle sinks her fingers into her fur gratefully. She finds the pair of them incredibly comforting.

“What happened?” Keith demands gently. Romelle hunches her shoulders.

“Nothing happens, it’s stupid. Allura wanted to talk about how to liberate the Altean colony and it scared me. I’m just…still processing what Lotor did to us, I think. I don’t want to risk the lives of my people to another so called hero.” She says, looking haunted. 

Her hands behind Lance’s ears still as she speaks. Keith’s brow creases as he watches her carefully, but he doesn’t ask any questions. Lance interjects though, whining softly and twisting to lick Romelle’s idle fingers. Romelle looks down at her with a small watery smile. 

“Sorry Lance” she says, “I wasn’t trying to ignore you.” Keith coughs and when she meets his eyes she thinks he looks embarrassed for some reason. 

“Oh, uh, I’m calling her Bance now” he says, shifting a little awkwardly on his feet where he’s standing. 

“Oh, why?” Romelle. To her continued curiosity, Keith appears to grow pinker and winces slightly.

“It’s a long story.” he says weakly. Romelle weighs that for a second before deciding that if Keith didn’t pry then least she can do is extend him the same courtesy, and doesn’t make him explain. 

“Well,” she just says, after a minute “I guess, that will make things less confusing with the team. You know, actually, I think I may try to speak to the paladin Lance today, actually.” 

Keith stiffens a little at that and looks slightly taken aback Romelle notices, and she wonders what’s going on with him today. Lance, _Bance_ , she corrects herself wags her whole body in doggy excitement.

“Why?” Keith blurts. Romelle cocks her head to the side. 

“Allura seemed to think very highly of him.” she says slowly, studying Keith’s reaction. “She said he was…calming. Good with people who are upset.” she finishes, with an embarrassed gesturer towards herself. 

Keith seems to soften, and then he softens even further and smiles in a way she’s never seen him smile before. It makes him look younger, she thinks, and very handsome, which is not an adjective she would normally use to describe him. She’s never thought he was particularly bad looking, but the lines of his face have always been too harsh for her to consider pleasant.

“That’s actually a great idea” Keith says, more warmly then she’s ever heard him before. “Lance is…really good with people. When we lost Shiro things were pretty bad for me for a while. Talking to him helped a lot. I don’t think I could have gotten through it otherwise.” and he keeps smiling and looking down at his feet. 

Romelle watches him curiously, cautiously hoping talking to Lance might give her insight in more ways than one.

———-

“Red Paladin! You are falling behind again!” Krolia yells over her shoulder at Lance from ten yards ahead. Lance huffs at that, stumbling under the weight of the large animal carcass slung over his back, as he wheezes for breath. 

“Yeah, well, we can’t all have crazy Galra super-strength” He pants back at her. She has a second pony-sized kill slung casually over one shoulder. This does not appear to be impeding her in any noticeable way, to Lance’s extreme annoyance. “Also, I’m begging you, _please_ call me Lance.” he says, through increasingly labored breathing. Krolia wrinkles her nose.

“It’s a dog’s name,” she says, like she’s said every other time they’ve had this conversation since she grabbed him for this little hunting trip. “It would get confusing. Better to call you something else.” she says, walking briskly forward again and ignoring both the sounds of Lance struggling behind her and his frustrated yell.

“No, I keep telling you, it’s a different name. It’s spelled different. _Lance_. It’s got an ‘L’ in it.” Lance explains, like _he’s_ done every time they’ve had this conversation. He’s mostly just talking to talk at this point, he’s already given up on getting through to her. He feels his grip on the carcass slip a little and he lets it slide to the ground, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees and try to catch his breath. Krolia walks over and stares down at him, her breathing totally even.

“I still don’t hear the difference.” she says, looking down at him pleasantly, her breathing totally even. Lance looks up at her exhausted and decides to save his breath, just shaking his head slightly and focussing on not dying. Krolia looks amused. 

“Would you like me to carry that for you?” she asks lightly, gesturing at the dead animal on the ground. Lance glares at that, and has to remind himself that she’s Keith’s very nice alien mom and he doesn’t hate her.

He drops his head between his shoulders and tries to get his breathing under control. As uncomfortable as he is, he’s actually grateful to Krolia for finding him and taking him out hunting this afternoon. After he humiliated himself in front of Hunk and Pidge, he’d been planning on sulking with Kaltenecker around the Red Lion until Keith started rounding up paladins to get moving again, but Krolia had been waiting for him when he got there and she had a different plan.

“I scouted out a herd of warteen grazing not far from here. Keith has told me you’re skilled with a gun. It would do us well to hunt when we can on our journey to extend our provisions.” She'd said by way of a greeting. Lance was emotionally compromised, which is the excuse he’s giving explain why he only really caught part what she’d said. His cheeks had flushed, pink and pleased. 

“Keith said what?” Lance had asked stupidly while his brain took a short break before coming back online to parse the rest of what she'd asked of him. “What's a warteen?” he asked after giving himself enough time to make sense of everything she'd said after ‘Keith said you were skilled.’

“They are large herbivores who travel in packs. They’ve been introduced onto many planets across the galaxy. They’re widely hunted for their meat and their—“ she cut herself off, making a bizarre gesture towards her face as if searching for a word before she remembered it “tusks!” 

She crossed the space between them in a few long confident strides and stood tall with her chin raised, towering over him at her full height, which left Lance feeling appropriately intimidated. Her cold competence reminded him that she was a highly ranked member of the blade, which had Lance thinking about Keith from earlier and how surprisingly _not_ cold he’d been. Lance really just wanted to be alone, and he hadn’t wanted to get bullied into going on a hunting trip with Keith’s scary mom.

“Uhhhh,” He said, backing away one step involuntarily. Krolia must have sensed his reluctance because all of her seemed to droop. It reminded him of how his uncle’s collies would look when you sent them away from the dining room table for begging, and he found himself warming up to her fast. He was just as weak to it now as he was back then.

“Please” she said, “I can’t eat any more goo.” Lance felt himself smiling at her. 

“It’s pretty bad, right?” he asked, jokingly. 

“It’s terrible.” she said in a rush, a wry and disbelieving smile spreading slowly across her face “And I’ve been a prisoner in a Galra labor colony _three_ times.” That made Lance laugh out right. He liked her a lot more now that she wasn’t trying to scare him into obeying her. He also thought it might be better for him to do something useful for the team instead of just moping around feeling sorry for himself. 

“Let me just grab my bayard.” he told Krolia with a grin. She grinned back at him.

“Thank you, Red Paladin” he heard her say at his back as he jogged over to his lion.

“Call me Lance!” he called back to her over his shoulder.

Still in the recovery position, Lance feels his breathing finally starting to return to normal. Warteen’s look sort of like walruses with long skinny legs, and Lance doesn’t want to think about how much they weigh. Now that he can breathe again, he notices how badly his back and shoulders ache.

“It really wouldn’t be any trouble for me to carry it,” Krolia says again in what Lance has been referring to as her ‘mom’ voice. “I don’t mind.”

“No, it’s fine” Lance says tiredly “I’ve got it” He turns to glare at the dead warteen and starts mentally preparing himself to go again. His heart rate has probably come down as much as it’s going to. Krolia stills him with a hand on his shoulder. When he looks up at her, she’s looking at the dense forest to their right. 

“Someone’s coming.” she says shortly. She drops her warteen next to his and takes a half step in front of him before going very still, listening, with a hand on her knife. Lance finds himself genuinely touched by how protective she’s being of him, and he experiences a pang of homesickness as he thinks about his own mom. He readies his bayard and waits. 

They stand in silence for what feels like a long time before Lance hears anything. As the rustling and the snapping of twigs draws nearer, he feels himself tensing up, but he relaxes as soon as he can see a person through the trees. He recognizes that person; it’s Romelle. He slaps Krolia on the shoulder playfully. “It’s just Romelle!” he laughs at her.

“I can see that.” she says back, relaxing into a small smile back at him. Lance cups his hands around his mouth.

“Romelle!” he calls, jumping a little to get the girl’s attention. Romelle jumps, startled, and starts making her way over. 

Once she’s waded through the forest to where she can stand with no trees between them, Romelle looks at Lance, then the two warteens, then Krolia, then back at Lance. 

“Hi,” she says a little awkwardly “I was hoping to find you out here, actually” she says, not sounding like she’s entirely sure. It takes Lance a moment to realize she means him.

“Oh, you mean me? Cool. Well, here I am” he says, holding out his arms and grinning widely. Romelle glances at Krolia and the warteens again, looking wrong-footed. 

“It’s stupid, I just wanted to talk to someone and both Allura and Keith pointed me to you. I should have just waited though, sorry. You seem, busy.” she says, staring hard at the dead warteens. Lance is momentarily stunned, that was the last thing he was expecting to hear. 

Krolia acts fast, scooping up both warteens smoothly, one on each shoulder. 

“He’s free” she tells the Altean girl shortly, already turning to go.

“Hey, wait!” Lance yells at her retreating back, shaken from his stupor. 

“You are required elsewhere Red Paladin, and like I said this isn’t any trouble” she calls back, already disappearing from sight. “I’ll let the others know who they have to thank!” Lance just rolls his eyes.

“My name is Lance!” he yells at her, and laughs. 

He’s still laughing when he turns back to Romelle, but he cuts off abruptly when he sees her eyes brimming with tears. His face softens. His heart goes out to her as he thinks about his sisters, and his other friends at the Garrison. He thinks about his mom.

“Oh, hey” he says, gently “Okay, come on, lets sit down and talk” 

—————-

Keith and his dog wander back to where he landed the Black Lion. He’s clutching the bundle of Lance’s bath stuff in one arm, but if he’s still talking with Romelle then Keith isn’t sure he wants to barge in on that. Keith remembers the way Lance made things feel bearable for him when Shiro was gone, and wonders if he’s doing the same for Romelle right now. He wonders if Lance is comforting her like he did Keith, with a hand on her shoulder, and something in his chest feels like ice. 

He shakes his head with a sigh and lays a hand absently on Lance’s blue shoulders. He doesn’t know why he’s dwelling on this. He had no idea what to say when Romelle told him why she was crying, and he likes the girl a lot. He thinks they’re both really similar, they both saw the truth for what it was, and didn’t believe the lies the authorities they grew up with told them. They both lost their brothers. Romelle lost her brother forever. If he knew how to talk to her about this he would, but he doesn’t and that’s why she’s talking to Lance. He wishes he knew why this bothered him so much.

He grits his teeth and tries squash down on the part of himself that wants to find them and drag them apart. When she first mentioned wanting to find Lance, something in Keith’s chest had gone cold then too. It feels almost like the times he lost Shiro, but not quite, and that makes no sense because he knows Lance isn’t far.

Something weird is happening to him, and he’s going to figure out what it is. He’s starting to develop a few theories. He knows Lance is a key element.

He reaches the Black Lion and he sees Shiro, Coran, Pidge, and Allura standing in a circle, talking seriously. Pidge glances up and meets his eye.

“Keith!” she yells, waving in greeting. The rest of the group to watch him approach. 

“Keith, hey. I was just about to go look for you” Shiro says, warmly “I’m glad you found L— the dog” he says, catching himself. Keith is so lucky to have a brother like Shiro. 

“Yes,” Keith replies, trying not to look Shiro in the eyes “Bance just wanted to stretch her legs a little bit. She went for a little run, but she never goes too far” he pats her on her side absently. 

Keith sees Shiro’s lips twitch in a way that he knows means his brother is trying not to laugh and looks fully away before he succumbs to embarrasment. While he looks around at the rest of the team gathered, he catches Pidge looking at him calculatingly.

“Well, I’m glad you found her.” Shiro says, after he’s fully composed himself.

“What’s going on?” Keith asks, ignoring the glint in Shiro’s eyes. The conversation the four had been having before he walked up had looked pretty serious. “Pidge and Hunk found trouble with the way we’ve been flying the Lions. They’re wanting to make a few changes to them before we all take off again.” Coran says, helpful and bright as ever. 

Keith nods at him, never really knowing how to talk with Coran. Before Voltron, Keith hadn’t encountered an adult like him before, one who was so cheerful and happy to see him. After his dad died, no one until Shiro had so much as a smile to throw his way. Keith appreciates Coran, but he’s always left a little wrong-footed in the face of his personality.

“What kind of trouble?” Keith asks bluntly, looking to Pidge. Pidge adjusts her glasses.

“Basically, we’re wearing the Lions out the way we’ve been flying them. The strain of sustained flight over a long period of time isn’t what they were designed for. Hunk can explain it better than I can maybe, but he came up with a solution to let certain propulsion systems cycle through rest when we’re just long stretches. We think that should keep the Lions from damaging themselves too much” she says. Keith frowns.

“Where is Hunk?” he asks, looking around.

“He’s helping Krolia barbecue the meat she and Lance brought back from their hunting trip,” Pidge says “But what he came up is a software fix, since we knew we didn’t have time right now to make hardware changes to the Lions.” 

Keith’s frown deepens.

“Lance went hunting with my mom? I thought he was with Romelle?” he asks. Pidge frowns a little at him, and he knows that wasn’t the important part of what she just said, but his brain snags on it anyway. 

“He's with her now, I believe,” Allura says, her voice softer and sadder than he’s ever heard it.

Keith blinks at her and lets his eyes sweep over her face. He thinks maybe she’s been crying, and he experiences a brief flash of terror at the thought that he might be expected to say something to her. He's not…good with crying. The protective set of Allura's jaw doesn’t seem to indicate that she wants anything from him though, he notices with relief.

For a split second, he fantasizes about mentioning something about this to Lance. He imagines finding the other boy and mentioning something about Allura being upset, how maybe the other boy would look for Keith after speaking with her to thank him for the tip and tell him he’d taken care of it. How Keith would thank him for that, maybe say something about how much he relies on Lance to lead Voltron. How that would make Lance smile at him, and maybe say the two of them make a good team—

“Anyway, I need a few hours at least before we can head out.” Pidge’s loud voice interrupts his daydream, startling him slightly. His eyes widen and he snaps them back to look at her.

“For what?” he asks, feeling lost and trying to gauge how long he’d been spacing out. 

Something really strange is going on with him today, and he wonders worriedly if anyone else can tell. It isn’t like him to zone out when someone is talking to him.

“To, uh, push our software changes.” Pidge says slowly, studying him “And then to run tests to make sure nothing breaks.”

“I don’t know why you’re acting like he’s going to say no, Pidge. Chilling out on uninhabited planets just kicking it is basically New Keith’s whole deal.” comes a pleased voice from over Keith’s shoulder.

Keith whips his head around and feels Lance vanish from under his hand in the same moment. He looks and sees the Lance who’s been slowly driving him crazy all day push away from the tree he was leaning up against to drum his hands Keith’s Lance’s flank in an amused greeting. The dog is wagging her body so hard she looks like a C.

“Yes, Miss Bance, you’re a very pretty girl.” Keith hears Lance coo, starting to smooth her fur down with his hands as if to calm her. Keith can’t stop staring at the picture they make, and wonders at the fact that Lance and Lance in the dappled shade are the brightest thing he’s seen. 

Lance happily winds her way over to get pets from Romelle, who Keith guiltily just notices is standing of to the side. She looks a lot happier than when he saw her earlier, he thinks, gratefully. 

“I wasn’t going to say no” Keith says, feeling strangely stunned. To his ears his voice sounds inexplicably breathless. Lance is approaching their group with a crooked grin 

“I know you weren’t,” he says, with a drawl “Krolia told me all about the endless-summer campout you guys went on. Keith was sitting around a campfire reading his dream journal to his mom while the rest of us were out fighting Sendak.” The last part is directed to everyone but Keith, and smile on his face when he says it is bright and mean.

Lance is now stood in the circle standing next to him, smirking at Keith like he’s throwing down a challenge. Keith knows Lance is trying to goad him into an argument, but he doesn’t feel himself getting angry about it. Instead he finds Lance’s teasing to be weirdly exciting and he’s almost feeling playful. It sort of feels like when Lance was a puppy and they would play-fight.

“It _was_ a pretty nice trip, actually,” he says lightly, trying to school his expression and voice to stay blank. He watches Lance’s reaction out of the corner of his eye with amusement. “Of course, we had to cut it short to save the whole universe again, but I’m glad you were able to keep find some things to do while you waited for me to come back and fix things.”

Keith looks at Lance smugly after he finishes and notices with dismay that Lance looks pretty genuinely taken aback. His jaw is tight and there’s a small crinkle in his brow, and Keith sees him exchange an absolutely stricken look with Allura. 

“Yeah, Keith, you’re the fucking best.” Lance all but snarls.

Keith could kick himself. He remembers how Lance broke down crying, blaming himself for not understanding what was going on with Shiro. He should have known that the recent mistakes of team Voltron were too big and too fresh a wound for him to poke at. 

He’d just wanted to keep Lance’s attention on him, wanted Lance to smile at him more, but it’s backfired spectacularly. He sees Lance take half a step back from the group and, starts to panic.

“I have your stuff” he blurts, thrusting the sack of gels and creams into Lance’s arms roughly before he can get away. 

Lance looks surprised when the speed of Keith’s motion causes the bag to swing and hit him lightly in his chest, but he recovers quickly and takes his things back from Keith with a grim little forced smile. Keith feels like he wants to crawl out of his skin.

Keith had spent his entire time down at the water, while he was testing Lance's bottles at random until he found the ones that he thought were meant for washing, imagining this moment. He’d been picturing a scene of himself approaching Lance sheepishly outside the Red Lion to thank him for loaning out his things. Lance would say it was no trouble, and then maybe want to run his fingers through Keith’s hair to check that he’d used the correct products in it. In Keith’s day dream, Lance would be very impressed with how clean he’d managed to get it, and maybe even offer to put some of that blue cream Keith’s seen him wear sometimes on Keith’s face too. He’d have to stand close to Keith and use his fingers to put it on Keith’s face, and Keith would get to tell Lance how much he’d missed him. And then Lance would blush again and say it back.

Outside of his imagination though, Keith had made an absolute mess. He'd responded to some light teasing about his mom by rubbing Lance’s nose in something he’d seen make the boy cry, and now Lance was trying to get away from him. 

“Oh, uh, thanks. I need to go, uh, put this stuff away before I forget,” Lance says, rubbing one hand through his hair and backing away a few more steps. 

Keith wracks his brain for ways to fix this and get that tight look off Lance’s face, but keeps coming up short. He isn’t _good_ at this. Before he’d been stuck for two years with his mom and nothing to do but open up to each other, he’d not even thought he wanted this. He’d chosen to push people away before they got close in the past, but he doesn’t want to do that anymore. He wants to be so close to Lance that it’s honestly freaking him out.

He has no idea how to get there though, and Lance is walking away. He needs a plan to fix this fast.

“We should all camp here for the night,” Keith’s mouth says as soon as the thought crosses his mind. 

Lance actually stops leaving for a second to stare at him, and Keith can hear the surprised reactions from the rest of the team around them. It doesn’t seem to make Lance _more_ upset though, so Keith continues, somewhat emboldened. 

“It will give Pidge and Hunk time to make sure everything works smoothly with our Lions,” he says, confidence growing at the way Lance's face seems to be relaxing. Keith tries to look Lance directly in the eyes, saying the next part as warmly as he can “I want to spend more time together.”

Lance’s cheeks go pink like they did earlier at the water and Keith feels the muscles in his back unclench in relief. Keith sees Lance’s eyes dart back and forth between him and Allura for some reason, and then the boy starts stumbling backwards a little faster.

“That’ll be…cool, okay,” Lance says, too loudly, “I’ll just, uh, drop this stuff of and let Hunk and Krolia know.” And he turns around and practically runs.

Keith takes a minute to remember he’s not alone before he turns back to look at the other faces in the circle. He doesn’t know when Romelle came to stand beside Allura, but she's there now and the look she’s giving him is wide eye’d and inscrutable. Allura and Coran both just look vaguely excited. Shiro is also staring at him like he’s close to figuring something out, jaw slightly slack. Pidge is looking at him like he just coughed up a hairball and asked her to smell it.

“Now I wish I’d packed my peanaroo,” Coran says wistfully, breaking the silence “Playing songs on the peanaroo around a campfire was my favorite part of camping when I was young! How sad that I left it behind! Oh well, do you think I can get another one when we get to earth?” he asks the circle at large, hopefully.

“Um, probably not.” Shiro answers. 

Pidge is still staring at Keith like she knows something terrible about him. It’s honestly starting to freak him out. 

“Holy _shit_ ” he hears her breathe.

———————

Lance is just about ready to go to sleep and put this whole day behind him. Between Allura, Keith, Pidge, and Romelle, Lance has experienced the full human spectrum of emotions and then some. 

He can see Allura across from him resting her head tiredly on Romelle’s shoulder, and he knows from talking to Romelle earlier there’s sort of a thing there, but right now he can’t even work himself up to feeling appropriately jealous about it. He’s completely feelings’d out for the day. He needs to pass out and recharge.

The fire they built is starting to burn lower now, and the chatter has died down, everyone happily worn down and sleepy after a day spent in natural light and a goo-less dinner in their bellies. Hunk and Krolia found a leaf to wrap the meat they’d brought back in that tasted almost like lemon-pepper, and they all gorged themselves.

He stretches his legs out in front of him and twists to pop his back before getting stiffly to his feet. Bance lifts her head from where she’s laid out next to him like a big electric blue rug and huffs at him sleepily. Lance bends down and shushes her.

“Shh, it’s okay. I know it’s bedtime, I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep, good girl.” he whispers in a baby voice, petting her head until she settles and lays back down.

He hears Keith stirring on her other side when he straightens up again and barely stops himself from sighing in frustration. He does not want to deal with Keith right now, especially when he doesn’t know which Keith he’s going to get. Is he going to get the Keith who treats him like a waste of time, who yells at him, and reminds him of all his biggest fuck ups, or is he going to get the Keith who talks about Lance’s strengths behind his back, who practically tears down a forest to check him out in the bath, and kept getting up to get him second and third helpings of dinner.

Lance doesn’t think he can handle either of those Keiths before he’s had a full night sleep. Those two Keiths have worn him out. Keith, however, does not get the memo.

“Where are you going?” he tries to whisper up at Lance. It’s pretty loud. Keith is not a particularly quiet whisperer. 

“I want to go to sleep” Lance whispers back, quietly, like a civilized person. 

Lance hopes this will be enough, but he has to remind himself that this is Keith, and in his eyes nothing Lance does is ever enough. Keith’s eyebrows wrinkle and Lance bites down a sigh. Of course he’s not going to make this easy. He watches Keith’s eyes flick around the circle at where the rest of their team is settling sleepily in.

“Why can’t you sleep here?” he asks, in his loud terrible whisper. 

Lance can see the light reflecting off Pidge’s glasses as their loudly whispered conversation draws her attention and hears her low voice muttering something to Hunk. They both turn to look at him and Keith and Lance can feel the last of his patience slipping away.

“I need my pillow and my— stuff” Lance whispers back, editing himself at the last minute. Keith doesn’t need to know he sleeps in an eye mask and ear plugs. Not this hyper masculine new Keith, with his biceps the size of Lance’s legs and his facial scars, who is apparently planning to sack out still in his paladin armor in the dirt.

“The like, stuff for your face? You need that?” Keith whispers back with a weird sort of urgency, making an aborted patting gesture at his own cheeks, apparently able to feminize Lance perfectly well without any help.

Lance feels his cheeks go hot in shame.

“What, you mean like a night cream?” he whispers back, hoping this will be the end of the conversation, “Sure, I’ll like wash my face and stuff too.” 

Keith starts getting up, and Lance feels his eyes bulge.

“I’ll come with you” Keith loud-whispers as he gets to his feet.

“What?! No, don’t do that!” Lance hisses back.

He and Keith are standing eye to eye now. Bance starts to get to her feet too, but Keith stops her with a hand on her shoulder. “Stay.” he commands in a low deep voice, and she settles back down with a whine.

“No, _you_ stay!” Lance hisses at Keith again, feeling himself getting worked up, “Why would you come with me anyway?”

Keith just looks at him strangely, like the question hadn’t occurred to him. The light from the dying fire is making his eyes sparkle, and Lance feels his heart thump in his chest. He can _not_ deal with this Keith at _all_.

“I thought we'd all sleep out here, so we can get the stuff you need and bring it back over. Plus I wanted to talk to you, about earlier” Keith says, in what probably even he wouldn’t consider a whisper. 

They have everyone’s full attention now, and Lance feels himself starting to get embarrassed. He resigns himself to the fact that he probably can’t shake Keith right now. He knows he’s giving in too easily, but there’s this part of himself that he wishes he could smother that is opening up like a flower at being pursued with so much determination. 

Lance narrows his eyes. He doesn’t know if Keith is playing games with him on purpose, but he’s pretty sick of the whiplash of getting jerked around. If Keith wants to talk so bad, Lance guesses he can’t stop him. But if he confuses Lance’s stupid and over-worked heart anymore they’re going to have _words_.

“Alright, lets go then, Samurai,” Lance practically purrs, a little meanly. 

He turns to go and walks a few steps before he hears Keith hurrying to catch up and fall into step beside him. Lance watches him out of the corner of his eye. Keith moves pretty silently in the night, and seems content just to walk next to him without talking, but not talking isn't something Lance has ever been particularly good at.

“So, what is it you wanted to talk to me about so bad?” Lance asks before they're even halfway through their walk to the Red Lion. 

He hears the snap of Keith stepping on a twig, the first one since they started walking, but otherwise there’s no sign from the other boy that he’d heard him. Lance leans to the side a little and bumps Keith with his shoulder to get him to start talking.

“I just wanted to say I was sorry. For what I said, earlier” Keith says, voice sounding a little strained.

Lance wasn’t sure he should expect this, but he’d entertained the idea that it could be a possibility. He feels his treacherous heart skip a beat in his chest. 

“When? You’re gonna have to be a lot more specific.” Lance says, knowing exactly when Keith means. Keith lets out a frustrated exhale.

“Earlier, when I said the thing about you just waiting around for me to save you, while I was away. I didn't mean it to come out like that.” Keith says, sounding pained.

The wound is still fresh for Lance, and he’s not in a position to censor himself emotionally after the day he’s had. He’s been thinking about this on and off all night.

“Oh, when we were talking about how you dropped Lotor and an evil fake Shiro off at the castle and then fucked off with your mom to braid flowers into each other’s mullets or whatever?” he says, in a deceptively sweet tone. “Is that what we’re talking about.”

Keith actually stops walking for a moment, and in the dim light of the stars coming through the trees, Lance can make out the surprise and anger battling it out on Keith’s face.

“I…what are…do you blame me for what happened?” Keith stutters at Lance.

His voice isn't angry, though. It's hurt. Lance feels himself melt at that, all the anger he felt earlier draining away.

"No," he says, taking a few steps towards Keith, voice gentle “Of course I don’t. None of it was your fault.”

"Nothing was your fault either.” Keith says, in a softer and warmer voice than Lance has ever heard him use. Lance’s heart pounds in his chest.

“I wish I could believe that” Lance says, and then Lance thinks _fuck it_ takes another step towards him and lays his head on Keith’s shoulder.

“What are you really doing here, Keith” Lance whispers into Keith’s collar bone. He feels the other boy stiffen.

“I…I wasn’t… _you_ were, I mean I didn’t, I mean, what are _you_ doing?” Keith stammers, and Lance feels his heart plummet. He can’t believe he misread this so badly. He _hates_ Keith for jerking him around like this. Lance tries to control his movements and casually shoves himself backwards from the other boy. He exaggerates rolling his eyes.

“Don't tell me,” he says in what he hopes is a teasing voice, "You can't give a guy a hug? Do you need me to say ‘no homo?’” 

Lance turns to walk away keeping his head high and his pace steady, secretly hoping Keith will run off now and leave him alone. _Surely_ with the day he’s had he’s earned at least that much. 

“Wait!” Lance hears Keith’s voice yell from behind him after he’s gone about thirty feet, but he doesn’t slow down. Even he has his limits for humiliation. He hears Keith start to run after him.

“Wait,” Keith says, desperately, grabbing Lance by the arm and swinging him around.

“What—“ Lance says, tiredly, but Keith interrupts him.

“I wanted to apologize to you, but I also, wanted some of your cream” Keith blurts out.

Lance chokes.

“ _What?! _” he says, rearing back scandalized.__

__“Your, cream” Keith says, hesitantly, making the same awkward patting motion from earlier on his cheek with the hand that isn’t holding Lance by the arm to keep him from leaving “I…wanted you to put it on my face.”_ _

__“ _Oh my God_ ” Lance whines, letting out a nervous laugh and covering his face with his hand. _ _

__“So, I can hug you too. But what I wanted is your cream on me. And…I don’t want you to say…that thing you said.” Keith says, sounding incredibly uncomfortable but looking determined._ _

__Lance lets himself faceplant into Keith’s chest and waits, tense. After a moment he feels hands pressing tentatively at his shoulders, and he lets himself smile._ _

__“I’ll let you use my moisturizer if you stop saying it like that, you big weirdo.” he groans, laughing._ _

__He feels Keith’s hands flex on his back._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, my voltron tumblr is wolfdog-blue.tumblr.com. I love to hear from you!
> 
>  
> 
> And if anyone knows how to find a beta please tell me, I'm getting desperate. If sigil magick plays into it PLEASE tell me about it

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me at wolfdog-blue.tumblr.com
> 
> also if you'd want to beta hit me upppppp


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